


Blindsight

by pistolgrip



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 18:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6715582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misaki's feet trace the path carved by his bloody hands a lifetime ago. Shibuya's flashing lights mock him, reminding him that all of this is wrong, wrong, wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blindsight

Yata Misaki is a summer child in the heat of the Shikoku countryside. He contrasts perfectly against the sparkling blue of the oceans. The sea breeze blows through his hair. He knows happiness (and then a thought completes a sentence he didn’t know was unfinished: _happiness like he has never known before_ ).

He can guess why it feels incomplete: Kamamoto was his best friend in a past life, too, and so he remembers days of running around with him during hazy summer days much like now. So Misaki knows he’s had a past life, but much of it remains clouded in fog. He doesn’t worry—he has learned to be grateful for ( _a second chance at_ ) family, friends, the burning pavement beneath his feet, the salty smell of the ocean every day.

He only talks about it once, to his mother. She sits next to him during one of the hottest days of summer and they bite their way through watermelon as Misaki talks about his adventures with friends. “You’re like a superhero,” his mother says, and Misaki sits up straighter. Superheroes are strong and powerful and able to save people, and a flash of escaping from a hostage situation in his past life flickers before fading away. “Mom, what was your past life like? Do you think I’ll remember more as I grow up? I used to hang out with Kamamoto back then, too!”

This earns him a strange look. “A past life?” She laughs and humors him. “For my past life, I must have done something great to be blessed with an angel like you.” He whines as his mother ruffles his hair, but he makes a mental note that whatever he remembers isn’t normal. He never talks about it to anyone after that.

Yata Misaki is energetic. Teachers have problem controlling him sometimes, but they see potential in him. He fails a few things, passes a lot more, and finds himself in a decent high school come April with some of his best friends. It’s embarrassing, but his mother ushers him and his friends underneath the cherry blossoms to take pictures. For the first few photos, Misaki’s friends gather around his stiff figure and burning face to pose for the camera. “Why so stuck up, Yata?” one of them yells good-naturedly when they catch a glimpse of his face, and it breaks him free from the spell to chase them around.

(He nearly runs over Megumi while running, and he pauses to lift her up. She grabs at the cherry blossom petals falling and throws them back into Misaki’s face, and when he sputters she bursts out into laughter. Recalling his mother’s words, Misaki thinks: _I must have been something else in the past life to have been born into this one._ His blurry childhood with Kamamoto is still all he remembers, and sometimes he catches glimpses of the past when he looks at his siblings. But there’s always something melancholy in trying to pry further, and Misaki cannot see them past the age of fifteen. He lets it go.)

 

* * *

 

In their second year, his high school’s soccer team makes its way to Tokyo for a tournament. The team has been given fairly free reign afterwards, and Misaki and his friends plan ways to roam around Tokyo immediately.

They pore over the map in the train, making plans, and Misaki gets increasingly tense. Even just approaching Tokyo makes the memories on his past life looser—the route through Kanagawa makes him sick, swallowing down the feeling _wrong, wrong, wrong_ as the train gets closer (because there’s more landmass than there should be, _Kanagawa should not exist,_ the coast is a natural formation instead of a perfect semi-circle created through destruction).

His eyes flit further east from Kanagawa, and one of his friends notices. “Whatcha frowning ‘bout now, Yata?”

“Can we go to Shibuya? There’s something I wanna see.”

“Sure you won’t feel claustrophobic, country boy?” The comment breaks the tension in his muscles that Misaki wasn’t aware of, and he almost falls back into the present. His friends circle all of Shibuya to make fun of him, but they still make plans to drop by there anyway.

The nervousness still sits at the bottom of his stomach.

The tournament is practically forgotten by the team’s excitement for a break from school in a big city. The first day afterwards Misaki and his friends simply walk around, eating as much as they can to spite their coach. It’s easy, it’s what they’ve always done but on a much larger scale, and it’s distracting.

They go to Shibuya on the next day and Misaki’s world tilts on its axis.

“You’re first, Yata! Make it count!” He’s thrust into the lead position and all his friends follow behind him. There’s sensory overload as they exit the station and head further down Shibuya, and Misaki especially takes his time absorbing everything.

He turns back and finds his friends’ eyes full of amusement. On making eye contact their mouths drop and they start pointing in random directions. “Whoa, guys, did you see _that_? And _this_? And _look at that_!”

Misaki crosses his arms in defiance. They do the same. _Is this how it is?_ He rises to the challenge by charging into the street, and a smile stretches wide across his face. Disgruntled pedestrians mean nothing to him and his friends when they forge their own path like a raging river over land.

It’s funny that Misaki thinks of water, because Shibuya is less blue than he remembers. In fact, Shibuya is multicoloured, and he thinks Shibuya would look more beautiful at night. He is hypnotized by Shibuya all the same, and he lurches forward to discover all of Shibuya in a blur.

(He repeats the name because it doesn’t sit right in his mouth: Shibuya. _Shibuya._ Shibuya? The more he says it, the less correct it sounds.)

Right foot on the ground. (He and his friends weave through the mess of Shibuya Crossing.) Left foot follows. (The sign to his left reads _Shibuya 109_. He blinks and colours dance around him.) Right foot forward. (He’s still running, and he hits the guardrail while exiting Animate. His friends laugh as they pick his sprawled out body up off the ground.) Left foot again. (He and his friends burst into Mos Burger, relieved at the cool air rushing at them. They ate before they got here, how is Misaki already hungry?) Right foot kicks up a cloud of dirt. (His friends push him into a group of jugglers at Yoyogi Park, apologizing when his left foot lands on a juggler’s baton.) Left foot. (right foot, left, right, he and his friends tango through smaller side streets and shaded alleyways.)

Misaki moves nonstop and finally pauses to allow his friends to catch up.

He breathes in.

It’s musty. It’s an alleyway, for fuck’s sake, the likelihood of drunk people coming to piss on the walls is fairly high. His friends rush in from one end, the crowd is bustling on the other, and Misaki can only think of the buildings that cage him in. He’s standing in a forgotten space between everyday life, and everything gets hazy again. “Be grateful,” he mumbles under his breath.

At last, the kick of shoes on pavement grind to a stop, and the spell is broken. Misaki grins. “How are you all on the soccer team if you can’t even keep up with a route as easy as this?”

“I expected sightseeing, not fucking parkour!” His friends slouch against the wall to catch their breath and something about it seems silly. Misaki laugh is not mocking, and he leans against the wall next to them as they all join in, the incredulity of the situation sinking in.

The sound of laughter reverberating between the buildings is tinny but not harsh to Misaki’s ears. He listens until the echoes fade.

“Did you see what you wanted to, Yata?”

 _Shit._ “I… don’t know what I’m looking for. But anywhere that looks like it’ll have something good on the other side is still exciting, right?” It’s time for another half-truth. He really _doesn’t_ know what he’s looking for, but if someone were to ask him to lead them there, he would end up right on the doorstep of _home_.

His friends groan but stand up anyway, stretching and brushing off alley dust. Misaki turns to lead them out of the alleyway, but one of them stops him. “Shouldn’t we head back?”

“Huh? We’ve only been running for—“ Misaki checks his PDA and triple takes. The five minutes of weaving through the familiar city evolved into eight hours.

He’s seen all of Shibuya and remembers none of it.

His friend smacks him on the head. “Not enough blood pumping to your brain? We’ve just been fucking around, following you wherever you decided to go. You wouldn’t tell us where, you’d just _run off_. Are you trying to get us lost?”

_Shit._

_Again._

Shibuya is bad because the memory lapses mean that Shibuya is _important_. It’s the edge of where past and present meet, but the blanks in his memory haven’t been filled with anything new and it frustrates him.

Misaki has never wanted to find the past, avoids it, but now that it’s so close he wonders if there’s been an importance to it all along. Misaki now and Misaki before are the same in Shibuya, and he desperately tracks back all the decisions that led him to where he is now. He shouldn’t have gone to Shibuya. He shouldn’t have played the tournament. He shouldn’t have joined sports teams in the first place. He shouldn’t have made friends. He should have dropped out in middle school—

 _Present. Back to the present._ He clenches his fists hard in his pockets, sure to leave little crescents in his palm, and he tries       to keep the tone light. Misaki is absolutely sure of this fact: he can lead them back. He’s known these streets since before he was born, he thinks dryly. Years of crawling around the streets ( _not alone, not with Kamamoto, but with—with—someone_ ) are carved into his mind, and he can recall them with ease.

“You guys think I’d lead you somewhere if I couldn’t take you back? It’s fine, we can keep going.” The insistence in his voice surprises even himself 

No one says anything. Misaki regrets it all, and for one of the first times in this life he’s struck with the intense fear that his friends are fed up with him for good. So he tries to laugh it off. “We should head back then, shouldn’t we?” _But we were so close._

 _To what?_ He really hopes he doesn’t zone out and move around on his own again, because Shibuya is fucking with him. He clenches his fists harder. Misaki brings himself back to the present. He is happy, he is loved, he does not need to remember a past life, and he will lead his friends back.

The trek back presents no memory lapses, and he falls back into familiar patterns with his friends. Misaki tries not to think about how whatever draws him into the corners of Shibuya strikes a deep pain in his chest.

 

* * *

 

On the fourth day, Misaki leaves for the train before his friends are fully awake. He mumbles about getting souvenirs for Megumi and Minoru and mom and step-dad, and his friends let him go without protest and promise to hunt after him if he doesn’t answer their calls.

It’s unsaid, but everyone understands: he’s going back to Shibuya.

Something about riding a train through Shibuya feels wrong. It’s a bit of a waste, but he tells himself he’ll get off at the next stop. The train comes to a stop and Misaki leans slightly to look out the window, eyes roaming to determine where he is.

And—

—It’s not like _he’s_ incredibly distinctive. Blending in has always been his intention, hasn’t it? But Misaki is unable to draw his eyes away from his stupid overgrown hair and when he adjusts his glasses—Misaki’s heart skips a beat, and that millisecond of hesitation gives way to a rush of memories.

_They meet for what Misaki thinks is the first time in middle school, or at least an alleyway nearby, looking completely unconcerned at the upper years taunting him. Saruhiko later says that Misaki’s involvement made the entire situation worse, but Misaki says he made it better, and they still argue that point when they lock themselves in adjacent bathroom stalls away from the rest of the school. The arguing becomes commonplace, but over time they add normal conversations, too._

_They’re middle school dropouts. Misaki feels his mother’s disappointment and resignation, and Saruhiko says nothing of his father. They miraculously find a place to live on their own: a dingy old place in a suspicious neighbourhood. Misaki can cook, Saruhiko can pull in slightly more money with his skillsets if they blur the lines of legality, and somehow this uncertain life is peaceful._

_They get involved with clans before they knew about clans, challenging <jungle> and nearly getting killed in the process. Misaki watches helplessly as <jungle> opens fire on Saruhiko, and cries in relief as one of the members of the HOMRA protects them almost effortlessly._

_Misaki joins HOMRA. Saruhiko_ technically _does, but miscommunications build over a year and a half and accumulate into this: another alleyway, Saruhiko scorching his own skin beneath his fingers, and one of the first huge losses in his life._

Time slows down when one is in a dangerous situation; all Misaki can think of is the name _Fushimi_ _Saruhiko_ and everything ignites in a swirl of blue and red. (Why are these two thoughts connected?) Saruhiko is right there, just _a little bit closer_ and he’ll reunite with his best friend, his worst enemy, and his—

_Fault. It’s all my fault._

Saying things out loud makes them real, but thinking isn’t any better. He swallows and looks out the window again.

Saruhiko has shown no sign of recognizing him on the train. In fact, his eyes are cast downward, shuffling awkwardly. But his eyes lack the sharpness they had this time in the past life, and Saruhiko is talking. He mumbles, and his _friends_ turn to him and chat back, and Misaki realizes all this time he’s been involved in the conversation. He never expected Saruhiko to have _friends_ , and the surprise he feels is immediately choked by shame.

 _So he’s better off now, then._ He remembers a whirlwind of an almost-decade in a moment by downcast eyes and dark hair, and he lets out a choking laugh when he sees Saruhiko’s lips twitch up into a small smile.

 _Am I not better off too?_ This life was good to him, the sunkissed child of his family, with boundless energy and enthusiasm. (There is no betrayal by friends, no bitterness towards his place in the family, no Saruhiko, no HOMRA, no _blood no bone no ash_ —) And he tried to be grateful. He _was_.

Because in this life, Yata Misaki stumbles, but is unfazed. His faith in people has no limits and he soars. He fits in the summer heat of the countryside, wind blowing through his hair. (It’s nothing like Shizume, where his jagged frame juts out in all the wrong places among the soft lights of the city. He felt at home in HOMRA, but here, _now_ , warmth spreads from every corner.)

His mantra _I must have done something great in my past life_ suddenly assaults him. The taste of blood strikes him where he bites into his lips. Shizume was a chance, and Shibuya is a purgatory.

His punishment, he figures, is this: Fushimi Saruhiko forgets while Yata Misaki remembers. Saruhiko does not see Misaki and therefore does not remember his life from ages thirteen to twenty-one, and he does not remember Fushimi Niki, or destroying himself in desperation, or a double-sided betrayal. He does not interpret affection as thinly masked cruelty, and Fushimi Saruhiko now stands on steadier legs than he could have ever dreamed of.

Misaki throws up his hood over his light-coloured hair, for once self-conscious about sticking out. If all goes well, Saruhiko’s eyes will not turn to him, and he will forget.

 _Saruhiko deserves this. He deserves to be happy._ And he thinks (and only thinks, because saying things out loud makes them real) _he doesn’t deserve to have someone like me drag him down in this life, too._

He forgets to get off the train. It pulls out from the station in the same manner as Misaki being pulled into the present: the doors close abruptly, isolating the inside from the outside, and then the train speeds up before he is prepared. He mechanically wipes tears from his face.

Fushimi Saruhiko forgets, and Yata Misaki remembers.

 

* * *

 

_Yata Misaki has scrawled the city into his mind and his family into his chest. His figure is distinctly red and awkward against cool blue lights of skyscrapers that cage him in. The air is stiflingly hot and he kicks, pushes faster to create a breeze that is anything but refreshing._

_He stumbles. One second he’s upright and the next his knees are scraping against the hot pavement, but he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t even notice it until Kamamoto screams his name. Red blooms along his knees but the ache is only dull, so he gets up and pushes off again before he starts to feel the pain. Kamamoto knows better than to try and stop him when he’s determined, especially when it comes to Saruhiko, and he is left running behind him._

_The tears sting when they streak down his face, but Misaki ignores it. He has lost too much time to lose any more by dwelling on his helplessness. His time is finite and he’s chased away much of it carelessly—this one chance, the only chance to live his one life well, and Misaki blankly realizes his life was on a downward spiral from the day he was born._

_Yata Misaki cannot surrender. The youngest member of HOMRA is by no means a deadweight, even after the red aura fades away with the Slates. He makes mistakes, learns from them, and finetunes time and time again. It’s not always enough, because Misaki is still human, and humans make mistakes. Before he knows it, he is standing in the lobby of Scepter 4, which is always far too elegant for every reason he’s been summoned here._

_Awashima sends him a look, unsure if she should reassure or apologize. Hidaka quickly leads a screaming Misaki and a panicked Kamamoto towards Munakata’s office. Around him, blue uniforms blur—Akiyama nearly bumps into him with a pile of paperwork; he bows and apologizes (for more than the bump, Misaki knows) before moving on. Fuse averts his eyes, and Enomoto pales upon seeing Misaki, and Doumyouji exits the medical ward with blood on his uniform, and he feels ready to burst out of his skin—I know, I know about Saruhiko, but someone just fucking_ tell me already—

 _Misaki is fully prepared for Munakata’s usual flighty expression; his heart drops even more when he finds Munakata is actually serious. “Get to the fucking point,” Misaki bites, and to his credit, Munakata does. “Fushimi overextended. Our medical ward was insufficient, and was moved to a hospital just moments ago.” Misaki is about to fire off again, but Munakata answers his question: “We brought you here under the impression that he would be treatable in our ward. He was not. Akiyama and Hidaka are available to escort you to the ER.” He reads the mood in the air as_ he overextended because you did, Yata.

 _Kamamoto puts a hand on his shoulder and says the only thing he thinks he is within his bounds to say: “You’re the only one blaming yourself. Yata, it’s not your fault.” But of course it is. If Misaki hadn’t been_ bored _, if he hadn’t pushed to have HOMRA help Scepter 4 hunt down strains, if he hadn’t chased too far past his boundaries, if he hadn’t passed out like fucking_ deadweight _, if he hadn’t left Saruhiko to try and retrieve him, if they still had their powers—_

_“Fuck!” He kicks the door from Munakata’s office open, and all eyes turn to him. “Gotou and Benzai went with him to the ER,” Akiyama states, unfazed that Misaki doesn’t stop storming through. Their powers are gone, he knows, but anger and helplessness radiate off Misaki just as bright as his former red aura. “We can drive you if you want,” and Doumyouji interjects with “We can throw on the police lights to make things go faster.” Misaki stops abruptly and an unreadable look forms on his face. Doumyouji looks ready to take back his words when a choking laugh stops him dead. Scepter 4 watches as anger gives way to sadness. Misaki thinks absentmindedly as he finally drops to his knees: he’s getting blood on their floor. Red against blue. Meeting but never mixing, he thinks, getting a sick satisfaction of grinding his knees further into the ground, smearing his blood._

_Kamamoto holds him up and rushes with the rest of Scepter 4 to the police vehicle. Misaki allows it._

_If Saruhiko’s dead, if he dies—_ don’t think, it makes it real, it’ll happen, if he actually dies it’s because _you_ thought about it— _if he’s dead, show him some mercy, let him live a better life._

_Shizume witnesses the prayers he whispers to it, but Shizume has never had mercy. Not for them. So Misaki rephrases._

_Take Shizume away in the next life. Don’t allow Shizume to form again._

 

* * *

 

Misaki once thought that uncovering memories of his past life would alleviate the emptiness held above him, but the emptiness _was_ his past life. He chuckles darkly. At least he’s consistent; even now, he chases things he should not.

They are already back at the hotel room when he drops the souvenirs that fill his arms. His friends mock him for the egregious amount of souvenirs for his family and buying _them_ souvenirs too, and he jabs back, _shouldn’t you get souvenirs for people whenever you go somewhere new?_ He’s all smiles as everyone ties the childish phone straps onto their bags.

(He ties himself to this current life this way, because this is his punishment. He forces himself into Saruhiko’s life at thirteen years old and forces Saruhiko out of his own at twenty-one, and he ties himself to the present because the past is over and there is no future.)

The rest of the trip goes without a hitch, and before he knows it, Tokyo, Shibuya, _Shizume_ fades away. Misaki’s joking, laughing with his friends, but if anyone has noticed how his knuckles turn white from clutching onto the armrests, no one says anything.

The air is eerily silent when he steps off the train station back home. He walks through winding streets and feels as though the small homes now look down on him. _Welcome back_ , they say, _congratulations on discovering the purpose behind this reality._ He kicks at a street mirror in anger.

Megumi sees him first; she struggles free of their mother’s arms and runs over to Misaki. Everyone follows, and it was only a week, why does he elicit such an emotional reaction? Upon catching a glimpse of his backpack, his mother scolds him for spending too much money.

“Well, it was a busy place and I missed you, we should go when they get older,” and if the hug he gives his mother is tighter and lasts longer than usual, he begs that she doesn’t say anything.

Except she does, after a while. “Was Tokyo alright, Misaki? You seem a little tense.”

He relaxes. “It was just—I had a really vivid dream. Of being lost.” _Of losing things._

“Mm, Tokyo is large, isn’t it?” His mother’s voice is soft. He sees his step-father walk inside to engage his little siblings, giving them a moment of privacy.

“It was. I was being attacked in all directions.” Misaki could have taken Shizume once, but Shibuya is not Shizume, his feet never find HOMRA, and Saruhiko does not make eye contact with him on the train.

“Were you saved in the end?”

This life is a purgatory for sins he cannot atone for. This Misaki begins overlaps with _that_ Misaki, and he weighs himself down with the thought that the past determines every future step.

_I’m working on it._

**Author's Note:**

> Just testing the waters... I haven’t written in a while and I’ve never posted any of my writing publicly, so please let me know if there’s anything I could work on (or anything you liked). ^o^ This is also out of my comfort zone because I pretty much only write PWP tbh
> 
> For clarification: based off the brief shot of Japan the anime gives us while disregarding the scale given in Side Blue, the Kagutsu Incident takes out most of Kanagawa (leaving a sliver of the western side) and the tiniest bit of Shibuya. 
> 
> Thanks go to: my psych classes for the title, my best friend for walking me through Shibuya, Mamkut for general writing and Japanese geography beta (and for helping me drop Misaki somewhere in Shikoku), Jenny for the actually-into-K beta, and Nemi for fucking me up with sarumi on twitter every hour of the day. This fic is for you.


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